Biography

A stout champion of the Protestant cause, Winwood achieved high office in the closing years of his life and gained widespread respect and admiration. Nevertheless, even those who knew him best were forced to admit that he had an unfortunate manner. His close friend, the letter-writer John Chamberlain, considered him taciturn, ‘very lofty and peremptory’, and ‘too plain a speaker for the tender ears of this age’, while his former secretary Dudley Carleton* remarked that he was ‘commonly thought not very affable, but rather harsh and austere’.18

I. Early Career

Winwood was probably born at Aynho, in south-west Northamptonshire, in about 1563. His paternal grandfather had served Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, but his father, Richard, seems merely to have been a tenant farmer.19 It was presumably through Richard that Winwood eventually acquired the Crown lease of Deanshanger manor, in Northamptonshire.20 In December 1577 Winwood matriculated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, but in June 1581 his step-father, John Weekes, obtained for him a fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, which owned the Aynho estate.21 Under its president, Laurence Humphrey, a former Marian exile, Magdalen was then the most puritan of all the Oxford colleges, and as such must have seemed an ideal environment for young Winwood, who according to a later Jesuit reporter had been raised ‘a hot puritan from his childhood upwards’.22 Certainly he seems to have felt comfortable at the college, for he spent most of the next 20 years there, during which time he studied law and carved out a career for himself as a university administrator. During the 1590s he seems to have been absorbed into the patronage network of the 2nd earl of Essex, who was associated with Magdalen in various ways.23 In the summer of 1594, desiring to broaden his horizons and learn foreign languages, he travelled to northern Italy, where he enrolled at the University of Padua. Although he subsequently resumed his duties at Oxford, he had now gained a taste for life abroad. On being asked to serve as secretary to (Sir) Henry Neville I* in the Paris embassy, Winwood readily agreed, subject to the approval of their mutual patron Essex, who granted him permission in December 1598.24

In May 1600, while Neville was absent at the Boulogne peace talks, Winwood was appointed agent in the Paris embassy, and he remained in post after Neville returned to England in July. The quality of his dispatches so impressed the queen and secretary of state (Sir) Robert Cecil† that, on Neville’s fall from office in March 1601, it was decided to defer the appointment of a new ambassador and allow Winwood to run the Paris embassy instead.25 Winwood was undoubtedly delighted at this expression of confidence in his abilities, even if he was distressed at the plight of his friend Neville. However, the responsibility of running the Paris embassy proved to be a mixed blessing, for his official allowance was insufficient to meet his additional expenses. In October 1601 a Privy Seal was issued to cover the shortfall, but no money was forthcoming as the Exchequer was now desperately short of money. Consequently, in December Winwood complained that, had it not been for the assistance of his friends, his bills of exchange would have been refused. The appointment of Sir Thomas Parry* as ambassador in January 1602 brought him no immediate relief, as Parry did not arrive for another six months, during which time Winwood was forced to incur further heavy expenditure.26 When Parry did eventually reach Paris, Winwood expected to spend two or three months in training him up, but in the event it was not until January 1603 that he was recalled.27

Winwood remained in pay until mid-February 1603, when he was informed that he was to become agent to The Hague, a position he had coveted since the death of the previous incumbent in September 1602.28 Although his appointment was delayed by the queen’s death, it was swiftly ratified by James I,29 who also had him sworn a clerk of the Privy Council in extraordinary. Before leaving England, Winwood purchased some additional property in Northamptonshire, and in mid-July he married the step-daughter of Thomas Bodley †. The wedding ceremony was a hurriedly arranged affair attended by only two guests and took place during a thunderstorm.30 In all the haste, negotiations for a suitable dowry were postponed, and as late as April 1605 the matter was still outstanding.31

II. The Search for Preferment, 1604-14

Almost immediately after his wedding Winwood travelled to the United Provinces. In May 1604 he observed the siege of Sluys, narrowly escaping shipwreck in the process. However, his presence in the Dutch camp was untimely, as England was on the verge of concluding peace with Spain, and he was therefore instructed to return to his desk. Winwood was subsequently delighted when he learned that Sluys had fallen to the Dutch, declaring that the town’s capture proved ‘that God is still a Huguenot’, but a few months later he was dismayed to hear that England had concluded a separate peace with Spain.32 In October 1605 Winwood invited the States General to name his new-born son, and to act, in a collective sense, as the boy’s godfather. The States were delighted at this request, and not only christened the child James in deference to England’s new king but also bestowed upon him an annuity of 500 florins.33

After almost three years in post, Winwood tired of diplomatic service and the costs associated with it and became anxious to seek preferment at Court. He was initially cautioned against surrendering his office, however, by Neville, who, now at liberty, judged that the opportunities for profitable advancement were then only slight.34 In the spring of 1607 he returned to England anyway, where he was rewarded for his service with a knighthood. His stay was brief, for in August he was sent back to The Hague, for though no longer agent to the United Provinces he had been joined in commission with Sir Richard Spencer* and instructed to attend the forthcoming peace conference between Spain and the United Provinces.35

Winwood clearly regarded this latest diplomatic mission as an unfortunate interruption to his search for further advancement, but he was confident that the negotiations for a truce would not last long and that he would soon be found a suitable position in government by Cecil, now earl of Salisbury. His imminent home-coming was certainly anticipated by his servant, John More II*, who obtained for him a lease of the Westminster house of Sir Francis Goodwin*,36 and in his absence he was granted one of the ordinary clerkships of the Privy Council. However, to his dismay, the peace negotiations proved to be protracted, 37 and it was not until after April 1609, when the Truce of Antwerp was signed, that he was permitted to return home. On his arrival he expressed dissatisfaction with the Council clerkship which he had been granted, seeing it as a demotion rather than the advancement to which he aspired.38 He therefore surrendered his patent in return for another as a master of Requests, which carried with an annual salary of £50, plus a yearly pension of £500 for life.39

By the summer of 1609 Winwood hoped that his diplomatic career now lay firmly behind him. He urged the appointment of his former secretary, Dudley Carleton, as his successor at The Hague, and looked to buy an estate near the property of his old friend Sir Henry Neville in south-east Berkshire.40 However, the eruption of a major European crisis over the united duchies of Jülich and Cleves caused him to be sent back to the Netherlands in August with full ambassadorial rank.41 In June 1610 he was also appointed special ambassador to the duchy of Cleves, in which capacity he attended the subsequent conference at Cologne, where he and the French representative helped to broker a settlement between the rival Protestant claimants.42 On returning to The Hague, he became secretly involved in the opposition to the Dutch Arminians, or Remonstrants, which crystallized over the appointment of a new professor of theology at the University of Leiden in succession to Jacobus Arminius. The university proposed to appoint one of Arminius’ adherents, the German theologian Conrad Vorstius, author of Tractatus Theologicus de Deo of 1606. Winwood was appalled, as he was convinced that Vorstius’ views were anathema to Calvinism, and offered to recommend to Salisbury a petition to James from a group of Counter-Remonstrant ministers. This proved unnecessary, however, as James was equally aghast at Vorstius’ opinions, which he characterized as a blend of ‘monstrous blasphemy and horrible atheism’. In August 1611 he instructed Winwood to address the States General in his name to let its members know ‘how infinitely we shall be displeased if such a monster receive advancement in the Church’. Winwood was naturally pleased to oblige, but the States, led by Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the advocate of Holland and an Arminian sympathizer, did nothing to prevent Vorstius’ appointment. A furious James threatened to organize a public protest by all the Reformed churches of Europe unless Vorstius’ appointment was reversed. On 10 Dec. Winwood escalated the crisis after he reported that he had received answers from the States there were both ‘impertinent’ and ‘void of reason and all respect’. Although he lacked the authority to do so, he bluntly informed the States that, by their behaviour, they had violated the Anglo-Dutch alliance ‘absolutely’. When James discovered that Winwood had indicated that the very alliance between England and the United Provinces was now at risk he was initially delighted, declaring that his ambassador had ‘done secundum cor meum’. However, after speaking to both Salisbury and the Dutch ambassador he began to have second thoughts, and on 29 Dec. Winwood was rebuked for having ‘directly and generally protested against the confederacy betwixt this State and that, by which all friendship and opportunity of good offices must be utterly extinguished’. There was now a risk that Winwood would be dismissed for having exceeded his commission, for although it was useful to have an ambassador whose views on the Dutch Arminians corresponded closely with his own, it was clear that James might need a scapegoat in order to repair his relations with the Dutch. However, in a long and detailed apology Winwood deflected the criticism against him by arguing that he had never actually called for the alliance to be terminated but had merely drawn attention to ‘the violence offered to His Majesty’s amity’ by Vorstius and his supporters. This explanation sufficed to placate James, and by February 1612 Winwood was receiving assurances that he still held ‘very good place in His Majesty’s gracious favour’. Shortly thereafter, James instructed Winwood to maintain the pressure on Oldenbarnevelt by offering the Order of the Garter to the advocate’s arch-rival, Maurice of Nassau. Matters came to a head in April 1612, when Winwood told Oldenbarnevelt that nothing less than the banishment of Vorstius would now satisfy James. An enraged advocate responded that this demand would merely make the University of Leiden all the more intransigent, to which Winwood replied that James ‘had the means, if it pleased him to use them, and that without drawing sword, to range them to reason, and to make the magistrates on their knees demand his pardon’. This thinly veiled reference to the House of Orange proved decisive, for a few days later Vorstius was exiled to Gouda, never to return.43

As the Vorstius affair reached its bitter climax, Winwood was once again dispatched to the duchy of Cleves, this time as special ambassador to the princes of the Evangelical Union. His deep hatred of Spain had earlier helped to persuade the leaders of the Union that their interests would best be served by seeking an alliance with England,44 and therefore in March 1612 Winwood concluded a defensive agreement with the Union at Wesel. This diplomatic triumph, coupled with the victory over Oldenbarnevelt, could not have come at a more propitious moment for Winwood, as in May 1612 the earl of Salisbury died and it was widely rumoured that a new secretary of state would be needed. Winwood naturally hoped that the choice would fall upon him, and so was full of anticipation when he was secretly summoned to return to England. His unexpected arrival at Court caused consternation, for it had been widely supposed that the secretaryship would either be conferred on Sir Henry Neville I or Sir Thomas Lake I. However, Winwood’s hopes were quickly dashed, for although he had several interviews with the king and was employed in the writing of royal letters, James proved unable to decide between the competing candidates, and in mid-July he returned to The Hague.45

Despite his disappointment, Winwood continued to nurse ambitions for the secretaryship, and with good reason. Before leaving England he had impressed not only the king, but also the queen and Prince Henry, and had obtained the support of the king’s favourite, Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, who acted as de facto secretary, and Archbishop Abbot, who admired his Protestant fervour. Even his friend and rival, Neville, supported Winwood’s continued bid for the secretaryship, believing that James might be persuaded to appoint not one secretary but two. Less than a month after resuming his diplomatic duties, therefore, Winwood began to agitate for his recall to London.46 However, he remained abroad, as in October 1612 it was rumoured that the situation in Cleves remained unstable. In the spring of 1613 he escorted the newly married Princess Elizabeth and Elector Palatine through the United Provinces in their journey towards Heidelberg.47 It was not until the following July that he was licensed to return.48

Winwood’s recall was viewed by some as incontrovertible evidence that Winwood was about to be made secretary.49 In fact, James had not yet decided to appoint such a minister and had only authorized Winwood to return to enable him to attend to his family affairs, as Lady Winwood’s step-father, Sir Thomas Bodley, had recently died. Once in England, Winwood soon discovered that Rochester, elevated to the earldom of Somerset in November, was wholly unwilling to relinquish the secretary’s seals. He therefore resolved to return to Holland at the earliest opportunity but was persuaded by James to delay his departure until after Christmas.50 During the intervening period he helped make the arrangements for Somerset’s forthcoming marriage to the countess of Essex.51 This was highly astute of him, for he quickly became indispensable to Somerset, whom he attended daily. Indeed, Somerset was so impressed with Winwood, whom he had previously met on only a handful of occasions, that he now promised to do everything in his power to secure the secretaryship for him. However, although it was clear that a secretary would soon have to be appointed if James summoned a fresh Parliament, Winwood had not yet forgotten how jealously Somerset had previously guarded the seals and was initially wary of trusting too much in the favourite’s promises. He was right to be cautious. On 5 Feb. Somerset promised that he would be appointed secretary the next day, but the following evening Winwood returned home empty-handed.52 Once again, Somerset had disappointed his expectation.

Somerset’s failure to carry out his promise was almost certainly the consequence of complex political intrigues at Court. At that time Somerset and most other members of the Privy Council, including the favourite’s father-in-law, Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, were opposed to a French Match for Prince Charles. The king, however, was attracted to such a marriage, primarily because it offered a substantial dowry which would go some way to solving his financial difficulties. In order to persuade James to abandon the French marriage negotiations, Suffolk and the 3rd earl of Pembroke proposed that a Parliament be summoned. This, they assured the king, would grant sufficient funds to make it unnecessary for him to pursue a French marriage. To make good their promise, Suffolk and Pembroke turned to Sir Henry Neville, who had earlier laid before James a scheme for managing a Parliament. Neville, however, refused to cooperate unless he was appointed secretary of state. This demand placed Suffolk in a quandary, as Somerset had just offered the secretaryship to Winwood. Somerset, however, had no qualms about setting aside his promise to Winwood if it meant the smooth running of the Parliament. When the hapless Winwood learned that Suffolk had offered the secretaryship to Neville, he turned to Somerset for help, not knowing that Suffolk had actually been acting on Somerset’s advice.53

By the time that a Parliament was summoned Winwood, believing that there was little chance of his being appointed secretary, began to contemplate succeeding Lord Wotton (Edward Wotton†) as comptroller of the Household.54 However, seven days before the Parliament assembled, he was finally granted the office that he had coveted for so long. Few people at the time doubted that this was Somerset’s doing. Sir Thomas Edmondes*, for instance, claimed that the favourite had persuaded James to appoint Winwood despite opposition from Suffolk, who had never had any intention of helping Neville and wanted all along to install Sir Thomas Lake.55 Common gossip, too, suggested that Somerset was the author of Winwood’s good fortune. It was claimed that Winwood had paid the favourite £7,000 for the office, a figure later inflated by one observer to £40,000. There is no direct evidence of any such transaction, however, and Winwood’s friend John Chamberlain hotly denied that Winwood had bought his place, although it remains possible, as Bishop Goodman believed, that Somerset received payment from the Dutch instead.56

The extent to which Somerset was really responsible for Winwood’s promotion is open to question, not least because of his earlier collusion with Suffolk to prevent it. The Spanish ambassador, Sarmiento, a normally well-informed source, claimed that Winwood was promoted because James had resolved to appoint the crypto-Catholic Lake. The king’s decision had so alarmed unnamed ‘Protestants and puritans’ on the Council (by whom Sarmiento presumably meant Pembroke, Abbot and Ellesmere) that they had warned James that ‘nothing that he wanted would be accomplished in Parliament’ unless Lake was dropped in favour of Winwood.57 Since James wanted more than anything for Parliament to succeed he was compelled to concede to this demand. Somerset’s role in all of this may have been purely secondary, for if the favourite did throw his weight behind Winwood it was probably only after he learned that Suffolk was trying to promote Lake behind his back and only after he learned of the ultimatum delivered to James by the Protestant members of the Council.

III. The 1614 Parliament

For the Protestants on the Council, if not for Suffolk, Winwood’s advancement was an essential precondition for the smooth running of the Parliament. Winwood’s strong Protestant credentials undoubtedly gave him a considerable advantage over Lake when it came to managing the Commons, but if Protestant fervour had been all that was needed to perform this task successfully Winwood would have enjoyed a happy and fruitful Parliament. The reality of the situation was, of course, far less straightforward. Winwood had never before sat in Parliament and was accordingly unfamiliar with its workings. Long years spent in diplomatic service meant that, unlike Neville, he also knew few of its Members, as he himself frankly admitted to the Commons on 12 April.58 His ignorance of the Commons and its personnel made it imperative that he be ably seconded. However, the king’s decision to appoint as Speaker Sir Ranulphe Crewe was not encouraging. Unlike Winwood, Crewe was not a parliamentary novice, but his only experience of Parliament had been 17 years earlier. Nor was Winwood’s situation eased by the fact that so many members of the Privy Council were peers. Aside from Winwood himself, only three councillors had seats in the Commons in 1614, one of whom, Sir Thomas Parry, was ejected half-way through the session. Of the remaining two, Sir Thomas Lake could not be counted upon to support Winwood with much enthusiasm, as he bitterly resented having been beaten to the secretaryship and hoped to see his rival fail.59 This left only Sir Julius Caesar, the chancellor of the Exchequer and an experienced parliamentarian, to offer Winwood the guidance and encouragement he badly needed, and he too may have been irritated at having been eclipsed by Winwood, for in the final two sessions of the last Parliament he had been the government’s principal spokesman in the Commons. There were, of course, other senior government officers in the House who were not members of the Privy Council, some of whom were prepared to rally behind Winwood, most notably the attorney-general, Sir Francis Bacon, a veteran of several parliaments. Even so, Winwood cut a lonely figure in the Commons. His sense of isolation was doubtless increased because Sir Thomas Edmondes, who had some experience of Parliament, had not obtained a seat. The only member of Winwood’s circle of friends who had both significant parliamentary experience and a seat in the chamber was his defeated rival, Sir Henry Neville.

If Winwood was placed under a severe handicap by his own inexperience and the absence of a significant body of supporters in the Commons, his position was rendered all but untenable by the government’s failure to deal with the issue of impositions before Parliament assembled. Suffolk and Pembroke had apparently assured James that all that was needed to ensure a successful session was to offer the Commons a number of Grace bills, which had been laid before the House four years earlier. Nothing was said of impositions, though, as Winwood was later to observe, it had been clear since 1610 that they were ‘a main grievance which did trouble the subject’. Indeed, it had long been predicted that unless the question of impositions was resolved beforehand there was little point in calling a Parliament.60 Winwood himself seems to have come to this conclusion by November 1613,61 and there is no reason to assume that he had revised his opinion by the time that he entered the Commons as Member for Buckingham in April 1614.

Winwood delivered his maiden speech on the opening day of the session (5 Apr.), when, with all eyes upon him, he presented the king’s choice of Speaker to the House. It was afterwards generally agreed that he acquitted himself well, although he was criticized in private for having spoken ‘in a kind of academical tune’, as though he were still lecturing at Oxford.62 He said nothing more until 11 Apr., when he relayed to the House the king’s view concerning the right of the attorney-general to sit in the Commons. James could see no reason why the attorney should be barred from membership when no such stricture applied to the king’s serjeant and the solicitor general. However, he was content to allow the House to exclude the attorney in all future parliaments provided that Sir Francis Bacon was permitted to continue sitting for that session. Winwood was undoubtedly relieved that the Commons adopted this motion,63 for had Bacon been expelled the already limited government presence in the House would have been reduced still further.

The following day Winwood made his keynote speech to the Commons, in which he laid out the government’s case for supply. He had apparently noted the earlier criticism of his delivery, for it was generally agreed that he gave a better performance than he had in his opening address.64 Leaving the details of the royal debt to be dealt with by Caesar, Winwood confined himself to a general overview of the Crown’s financial situation. He began by discussing the Navy, which he claimed was ‘so distressed with penury and poverty’ that it had come close to being disbanded. From there he moved on to consider the garrisons of the Cautionary Towns, which had gone so long unpaid that they were on the verge of mutiny. This was a worrying prospect, but it was not until he came to contemplate Ireland that Winwood really began to play on Members’ fears. Ireland was ‘not a thorn in our foot but a lance in our side’. Already the earl of Tyrone was plotting to rekindle the flames of rebellion, and if Ireland were lost after so long under English control England would be exposed to the mockery of the world. Yet to defend Ireland would be prohibitively expensive, as the war of 1598-1602 had shown only too clearly. In addition to the threat of renewed war in Ireland, Winwood raised the spectre of conflict over Jülich-Cleves, where continued tension might at any moment break out into a general European war in which James could not afford to be an idle spectator. Military intervention, however, would require a generous vote of parliamentary supply. Finally, Winwood touched upon the recent marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine, which, he alleged, had brought upon the king the greater part of his debts.65

Many of those listening to this speech were unmoved by its contents even if they were impressed with the manner of its delivery. It is not difficult to see why this should have been the case. It was clearly false to suggest that the king’s financial difficulties stemmed largely from the expense of marrying his daughter. As everybody knew, a major cause of the Crown’s acute financial difficulties lay not in the royal marriage, the cost of which had been met by a feudal aid, but in the king’s chronic overspending, though naturally this was not something that Winwood could publicly admit. Unable to discuss the true causes of the king’s financial difficulties, Winwood was compelled to make a case for supply on the basis of wars that had not yet broken out, namely rebellion in Ireland and conflict over Jülich-Cleves. Unless James was about to declare war on Spain this tactic was bound to be seen as scaremongering, and was never going to persuade Members to loosen their purse-strings. Perhaps the principal defect of Winwood’s speech, however, lay not its contents but in its timing. On 5 May Sir Edwin Sandys argued that it was almost unprecedented for a request for supply to be made at the beginning of a Parliament. He maintained that this had happened only once in the last 25 years, in the entirely exceptional circumstances of 1601, ‘when Hannibal ad portas’. Others agreed with Sandys that Winwood’s demands were premature. Indeed, Bacon later advised the king that in future subsidies should not be requested until midway through a parliamentary session. How far Winwood was directly responsible for the timing of his speech, and how far he was responding to pressure from the king, is unknown, but he denied having spoken prematurely, arguing that the Crown’s financial situation was almost as bad as it had been in 1601.66

The collective response of the Commons to Winwood’s call for supply was to ignore him. The issue was not raised again until 5 May, when Sir Herbert Croft proposed that the question be addressed the following morning. As no-one was prepared to second this motion, Winwood asked the House to assign another day to discuss supply if Members were unwilling to debate it tomorrow. The House refused to do this, but did agree that James should be informed that it was prepared to grant him generous supply ‘in convenient time’.67 Meanwhile, Members preferred to debate the king’s right to impose. Winwood initially remained aloof from the discussions, taking no recorded part in the debates of 16 or 18 May. However, on 21 May the House mischievously voted to dispatch him to the Lords with a request for a conference on the subject. On returning to the chamber, he heard Sir Henry Wotton and Sir Roger Owen debate whether foreign princes were entitled to impose. As a former diplomat he was familiar with Continental practice, and since it appeared that Owen was speaking nonsense he rose to speak. He chose his words carefully, as he wished to make it clear that he was not seeking to question the king’s right to impose but merely to correct some points of fact. In his view, foreign princes did impose but they did so not ‘by right or law but by prerogative’, and ‘without assembling the states’. Owen, who had suggested otherwise, was dismissed as having said much but proved nothing.68 The Commons did not finally turn its attention to supply until 6 June, when it was prompted to do so not by Winwood, but by the prospect of imminent dissolution. Winwood’s contribution was merely to reiterate the government’s case for supply, repeating, for instance, his earlier claim that there was soon likely to be a general war over the Rhineland duchies. He also added that the Russian emperor was now demanding the annual sum of £50,000 for the sole right to continue trading with his country, a privilege which the Dutch were so anxious to obtain for themselves that they had offered the Czar the sum of £60,000.69 However, his words fell on deaf ears, as the Commons refused to vote subsidies unless the problem of impositions was also addressed.

Winwood’s inability to persuade the Commons to vote supply, and his unwillingness to be drawn into the debates on impositions (except to correct a point of fact), meant that he was marginalized for much of the session. It is true that he was accorded a prominent role in the passage of the bill to affirm the rights of succession of the Elector Palatine’s children, presenting it to the Lords on 15 Apr., but being an uncontroversial measure the bill took up little of the Commons’ time.70 It is also the case that, as the king’s leading spokesman in the House, it was inevitable that he would occasionally be drawn into debate. However, when this happened he often proved ineffective. When, on 10 May, he communicated to the House the king’s request to have the right to punish Sir Thomas Parry remitted to him the Commons turned him down.71 He proved no more successful on 23 May, when he supported the Speaker’s attempt to defer the reading of a paper outlining the case for abolishing the newly created order of baronets. He asserted that the matter complained of was not a general grievance and that to raise it at all trenched upon both the king’s honour and prerogative. His words elicited astonishment from Sir Edward Hoby, who thought it deplorable that a legitimate grievance should be characterized as a calling into question of the king’s honour. The rest of the House concurred, and accordingly proceeded to have the paper read.72 Two days later Winwood tried unsuccessfully to prevent the House from resolving to suspend all committee business after Members took offence at the words directed against them in the Lords by Bishop Neile. Worse still, he subsequently (27 May) came under attack from John Hoskins, who accused him (though not by name) of having falsely informed the king that the House had gone into recess on its own authority. In response, Winwood denied having spread misinformation, and rounded on Hoskins for his presumption in seeking to know why the king had written to the House challenging its unilateral decision to suspend part of its business.73 It was a clever reply, and Hoskins was silenced, but under the circumstances it was a hollow triumph, as Winwood attracted considerable censure from his colleagues.74

Although impotent and largely ignored for most of the Parliament, Winwood gained a measure of respect and support within the House for his unequivocal commitment to the godly cause. Like many of his colleagues, Winwood was alarmed at a sharp rise in the number of recusants, and on 6 May he proposed that the following Monday afternoon be set aside to consider the problem. This motion was duly adopted, and during the resultant debate (9 May) Winwood blamed the clergy, many of whom were so lazy that they failed to preach or instruct the young (‘the best way to lay the first foundation of religion’) for an alarming increase in popery. Many clergymen also lived scandalous lives and were non-resident, holding more than one benefice, thereby rendering them incapable of ministering to the needs of all their parishioners. Yet, as Winwood observed, the large number of recusants was scarcely apparent from the small number of fines paid into the Exchequer. He therefore challenged the official responsible for collecting these recusancy fines, (Sir) Henry Spiller, then a Member of the House and widely suspected of corruption, to explain why the king received so little benefit from this source. All that Spiller would say, however, was that the king had given the money away.75 Winwood’s zeal in pursuing this matter was meat and drink to puritan Members such as Sir James Perrot and Nicholas Fuller, among whom Winwood established a ‘good reputation’, at least temporarily. However, his open criticism of the clergy also brought down upon his head the wrath of the entire clerical establishment. The bishops were said to ‘have him in conceit of a puritan’, accused him of conversing with Brownists to traduce the entire clergy and represented his speech as an attempt to ‘make himself head of the puritan faction’. Winwood was accordingly forced to explain himself to the king, but fortunately for him James was satisfied that he had done nothing wrong.76

Winwood was heartily relieved when the Parliament was finally dissolved. For one thing, Parliament had taken up so much of his time that he had been obliged to neglect his duties as secretary of state.77 However, this was clearly not the main reason for his relief. His friend, John Chamberlain, had predicted from the beginning of the session that he would be forced to undergo a ‘fiery trial’, and he had certainly not been exaggerating.78 Writing to Carleton in the middle of June, Winwood confessed that he had never witnessed, ‘either at home or abroad, so much faction or passion, so little reverence to the majesty of the king or so little respect of the public good or welfare of the kingdom’. The experience had so shocked him, he declared, that he hoped never to repeat it.79 After the dust had settled, however, Winwood reluctantly came to realize that no matter how unpleasant parliaments might be, there was no alternative to them while the king remained in acute financial difficulties. Consequently, in September 1615 he argued at the Council table in favour of summoning a fresh Parliament. Mindful of the need to avoid further ‘interruptions’, however, he added that it was essential to resolve the issue of impositions ahead of any new assembly.80

IV. Conflict with Somerset and the Howards

Soon after the dissolution of the 1614 Parliament, Winwood purchased an estate in south Buckinghamshire, which Chamberlain valued at £800 a year. At the heart of this property lay the royal manor of Ditton Park, the keepership of which Winwood bought from the 5th Lord Chandos (Gray Brydges†) for £1,100.81 Situated in the parish of Stoke Poges, Ditton lay near Billingbear, the Berkshire seat of Sir Henry Neville, and adjoined the lands of the lord chief justice of King’s Bench, Sir Edward Coke*, with whom Winwood rapidly developed a warm friendship.82 Over the next few years, Winwood’s wife rebuilt Ditton’s fourteenth-century mansion house, which she surrounded with new gardens, ponds and an orchard, achieving striking results at very little cost.83

Winwood had attained high office despite the fierce opposition of the earl of Suffolk, who disliked his militant brand of protestantism and fervent hatred of Spain. Following the dissolution, Suffolk, now lord treasurer, attempted to isolate Winwood from the king as much as possible, keeping him busy at Whitehall whenever James journeyed to Newmarket or Royston. Winwood, however, was perfectly content with this arrangement, as he found the king’s incessant questioning of him over dinner rather tiresome.84 By December 1614 it was rumoured that Suffolk was plotting to supplant Winwood with Sir Fulke Greville*, who had only recently replaced Caesar as chancellor of the Exchequer.85 In May 1615 the tensions between the two men surfaced when Winwood disagreed with Suffolk in front of the king over the lord treasurer’s backing for the Cockayne Project, but Winwood had been so poorly briefed that Suffolk was able to defeat his every objection.86 Later that month, Winwood publicly signalled his hostility to the Howards by taking part in a procession led by Viscount Fentoun, an enemy of the Howards, and Suffolk’s son-in-law, William, Lord Knollys†. Winwood rode as far as Hyde Park with Fentoun and sported his feathers, an act of defiance which revived speculation that Greville would soon succeed him.87 These rumours were groundless, however, for James was fond of his secretary and confident in his ability.88 Indeed, Winwood posed a greater threat to the Howard faction than it did to him, as Suffolk and his cronies were soon to discover.

Suffolk’s principal ally at Court was Somerset, who had been appointed lord chamberlain following the dissolution of the Addled Parliament. Somerset may have had less to do with Winwood’s advancement to the secretaryship than was widely believed; certainly his earlier promises of support had proved empty. Now that Somerset was lord chamberlain, Winwood expected to receive the secretary’s seals, but to his astonishment Somerset refused to hand them over. Somerset continued to behave as though he were still de facto secretary, insisting that all diplomatic correspondence should be addressed to him.89 In October 1614 an exasperated Winwood was forced to ask the English agent in Brussels, William Trumbull*, to send dispatches to him as well as to the lord chamberlain.90 Somerset’s behaviour was humiliating to Winwood; even Sir Thomas Lake, who was no friend of Winwood, was surprised that the secretary would tolerate it.91 By July 1615 Somerset was finally persuaded to surrender the seals, but at the very last moment he refused to part with them.92 He would pay a high price for his obstinacy, for Winwood soon had at his fingertips the weapons with which to exact severe retribution.

Sometime during the summer of 1615 Winwood visited the countess of Shrewsbury, then a prisoner in the Tower. Why he did so remains a mystery. From talking to her he discovered how Somerset’s former friend, Sir Thomas Overbury, had died two years earlier while imprisoned in the Tower. Overbury had been poisoned, she declared, a fact she had gleaned from the lieutenant of the Tower himself, Sir Gervase Elwes.93 In order to discover whether this was true, Winwood hoped to persuade Elwes to incriminate himself. He therefore enlisted the help of the countess’ husband, perhaps in return for a promise that the countess would be released.94 The earl of Shrewsbury accordingly invited Elwes to dine with him at Whitehall, ostensibly in order to present the lieutenant to Winwood. Elwes accepted the invitation, but over the meal table Winwood declined to become better acquainted with him until Elwes had cleared himself of suspicion that he was involved in Overbury’s death. The foolish Elwes, failing to sense that he was being ensnared, took Winwood aside and privately confessed that he had been forced to connive in the murder, which he claimed had been carried out on the orders of Somerset and his wife.95 By early September a no doubt gleeful Winwood had revealed his findings to a horrified James.96 Later, he and three other councillors interrogated one of the chief perpetrators of the murder, Richard Weston.97 At the beginning of November, Somerset was stripped of office and imprisoned in the Tower. The entire Howard faction now fell under suspicion, and for several months Suffolk’s power was temporarily eclipsed. In May 1616 Winwood witnessed the conviction of Somerset and his wife for murder.98

V. Final Years, 1616-17

Winwood had exacted a heavy revenge for the mistreatment he had received at the hands of Somerset and Suffolk. In the process he had also helped to reshape politics in the mid-Jacobean period, for the fall of the Somersets hastened the rise to power of a new royal favourite, George Villiers. His triumph was somewhat marred, however, by the appointment against his wishes of Sir Thomas Lake as junior secretary of state in January 1616.99 Winwood need not have feared, however, for less than three months after Lake’s appointment Chamberlain observed that Winwood ‘stands in as good terms as ever he did’. Indeed, Winwood ‘so far outstrips his colleague, both in action and reputation, that it is observed that he [Lake] hath small doings’.100 Winwood never lost this dominant position, despite the best efforts of his rival, who in April 1616 got his new son-in-law, William, Lord Roos, appointed extraordinary ambassador to Spain. The appointment of Roos threatened to undermine Winwood’s exclusive right to deal in matters of foreign policy, for in theory Lake, as junior secretary, was confined to domestic affairs. However, within a matter of months Roos’s marriage to Lake’s daughter had foundered. Winwood naturally turned this situation to his own advantage by assiduously cultivating the young man’s friendship. He proved so successful in this that by the time Roos left for Spain Roos relied more closely upon him than upon Lake.101

One reason that Roos was so useful to Winwood is that Winwood was among a minority of privy councillors who were deeply opposed to a Spanish marriage.102 Indeed, he produced a paper outlining his reasons against it.103 Vainly he hoped that James might be persuaded to marry his son to one of his Protestant subjects, for he regarded a Catholic French princess just as unsuitable as a Spanish Infanta.104 However, Roos’s usefulness as an informant ended in February 1617 with the termination of his embassy. In the following month, Winwood was dealt a further blow when he and the other councillors opposed to the Match were excluded from Council discussions on the subject.105 Despite these setbacks, Winwood continued to act as a focus for anti-Spanish feeling. The Venetian Republic, through its representative in London, regarded him as ‘the open enemy of Spain’ and ‘the chief protector of our cause’. So too did the duke of Savoy who, in the summer of 1617, turned to Winwood, among others, to put pressure on James to provide financial assistance for Savoy’s war with Spain over Montferrat.106 It seems highly likely that those who believed that Winwood was responsible for securing the release from the Tower of Spain’s bitter enemy (Sir) Walter Ralegh† in May 1616 were correct.107

Winwood remained in London while the king journeyed to Scotland in the spring of 1617. In June he lobbied George Villiers, now earl of Buckingham, on behalf of his friend Sir Edward Coke, who had been dismissed from office in the previous year. Coke desperately desired to be restored to the king’s favour, and therefore offered the hand in marriage of his stepdaughter Frances to the earl’s older brother, Sir John Villiers. Winwood urged Buckingham to accept this offer, but Coke’s estranged wife, Lady Hatton, was vehemently opposed to the proposed match. Her allies included the recently appointed lord chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon, who tried to persuade Buckingham that Winwood was acting out of factional motives in seeking a Coke-Villiers marriage alliance. He also attempted to intimidate Winwood, rebuking him for a minor offence when they were engaged in some official business together. Winwood was undeterred by such bullying, however, and when Lady Hatton attempted to conceal Frances at Hampton Court he issued Coke with a search warrant, thereby enabling Sir Edward to regain possession of his stepdaughter. Bacon and the rest of the Council were furious that they had not been consulted, and accused Winwood of praemunire. However, they were left open-mouthed when Winwood produced a letter from James which authorized all his earlier actions.108 Lady Hatton and Bacon were now powerless to prevent the marriage, which took place in the following September. Winwood emerged from the affair with his status enhanced, for although he now counted Bacon among his enemies the fortunes of Sir Edward Coke had begun to revive. Moreover, he had gained the support of the queen, who had favoured the match all along.109

Winwood was receiving medical treatment for an unknown ailment as early as April 1617.110 On 20 Oct. he developed a fever, and two days later he took to his bed. On 24 Oct. he was bled by the king’s physician, Dr. Theodore Mayerne, whereupon it was found that his blood was ‘very bad and foul’; he also grew exceptionally talkative. He died at 7 o’clock on the morning of 28 Oct. at his house in St. Bartholomew the Less. The suddenness of his death occasioned such curiosity that his body was opened up. It was discovered that his spleen and one of his kidneys had rotted away while the remaining kidney had severely decayed. Winwood was buried in a private ceremony at 10pm on 30 October. His widow soon after commissioned a vault in the chancel of the church of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, for which she paid £10. Winwood left no formal will, but on his deathbed he managed to communicate his wishes concerning the disposition of his estate. To his eldest surviving son, Richard, who was still a minor, he bequeathed lands in Buckinghamshire worth £1,500 p.a., as well as Ditton Park. To a second son he left holdings in Norfolk worth more than £6,000 at sale. His third remaining son was granted land in Essex worth £100 a year, and his two surviving daughters were bequeathed dowries of £4,000 apiece.111

On learning of Winwood’s death, Carleton commented, ‘I do not think any one of our nation since the death of that nobleman to whom Mr. Secretary once belonged [the 2nd earl of Essex] ... hath been so generally lamented’. Archbishop Abbot felt the loss no less keenly, writing to Trumbull that ‘the king our master hath lost an excellent servant, the kingdom an able patriot and yourself an honourable friend’. There were some, of course, who were far from saddened by the secretary’s death, among them Bacon, who in December 1617 publicly described his late colleague as ‘a rotten reed’. Bacon’s listeners were naturally appalled by this tasteless remark, but as Chamberlain sadly observed, ‘they say a live dog hath the vantage of a dead lion’.112

A full length portrait of Winwood, painted in 1613 and attributed to the Dutch artist Abraham Blyenberch, hangs at Boughton, in Northamptonshire, the home of his daughter, Anne, and her husband Edward, 2nd Lord Montagu (Edward Montagu II†).113 Winwood’s eldest son, Richard, entered Parliament for New Windsor in 1641.

53.HMC Buccleuch, i. 148-9, miscalendared ‘1613?’ This letter was clearly written in mid-Feb. 1614. For the impact of the French marriage negotiations on the decision to summon the 1614 Parliament, see A. Thrush, ‘The French Marriage and the Origins of the 1614 Parliament’, The Crisis of 1614 and the Addled Parl. ed. S. Clucas and R. Davies.

60. ‘And before this Parliament was resolved, it was foretold that that difficulty was to be accommodated, or else no good success to be expected’: SP99/16, f.108. Russell read this to mean that James was assured before the Parliament met that impositions would be dealt with, but that does not appear to be the correct sense: C. Russell, Addled Parl. 16.